Rookie Roadmap: How to Play with Magic Foundations

Veteran Magic players will remember the Core Set, a special set not based on a single plane composed primarily of reprints. The goal of the Core Set was to provide a strong base for Standard play, with cards that hinting at upcoming draft archetypes, as well as being an accessible starting point for new players.

Although Core Sets were discontinued in 2021, they are returning as Magic: The Gathering Foundations. As the name implies, this new set aims to be a foundational base for Magic sets in the next five years. Whether you're brand new to Magic or you've been playing for years, Magic Foundations aims to have something for you. 

The Foundations of Magic

Magic Foundations includes several different products designed to help new players learn the game. For brand new players, or veterans wanting to teach their friends, the Beginner Box is the place to start.

This box contains everything you need to get started, including a guided sample game to learn the rules and ten Jumpstart packs to experiment with and learn your style. 

More experienced players might instead go for the Starter Collection, which contains 350 cards to start building your own decks with. It also includes Sol Ring and Command Tower so you can try out Magic's most popular constructed format. 

Of course, Magic Foundations is also a perfect set to draft. It will be around for five years, more time than any other set. This makes it the perfect place to learn drafting or refine your skills. 

Foundations will also likely be compatible with upcoming Standard-legal sets, so the draft environment won't get stale. Naturally, this will also give you a solid collection to build decks in Standard for years to come.

Jumpstart Your Magic

For players not interested in Standard, Foundations Jumpstart includes brand new cards legal in Legacy, Vintage, and Commander. Each Foundations Jumpstart pack contains 20 cards which you combine with another Jumpstart pack for an instant Magic deck ready to play against other Jumpstart decks.

Every pack is built around a theme, so you can mix and match them to keep games fresh and discover your favorite way to play. With nine themes per color, and the first five-color Jumpstart theme, you'll have the chance to discover everything each color is capable of.

The white Jumpstart themes mostly focus around attacking quickly with small creatures that are supported in a variety of ways. Prideful and Giddyap include ways to boost your Cats and Unicorns, respectively, while Armed and Enchanted instead focus on Equipment and Auras.

Legion instead makes as many creature tokens as possible, while Healers includes creatures that get stronger when you gain life. White is about more than just small creatures, though. It's also the color of Angels and +1/+1 counters, two powerful strategies to dominate the mid and late game.

Blue also offers a diverse set of themes, from fan favorites, like Ninjas and Wizards, to more obscure creature types, like Illusions. The Of The Coast theme includes an array of sea creatures, from Crabs to Merfolk. The more mechanical themes include Drowned, which enables you to play cards from your graveyard, and Soaring, to let you dominate the skies with flying drakes.

Surprise! leans into blue's tricky nature by casting spells on your opponent's turn. Finally, Bookworms rewards you for drawing as many cards as possible and Inventive is for the tinkerers and mechanists who'd rather play with artifacts than dusty tomes.

In Magic, black is the color of ambition, but it's also the color of Snakes, Insects, and Vampires. The Ne'er-Do-Wells theme features many Rogues and Assassins, letting you steal cards from your opponent's deck. Clerics are focused around gaining life, while Nefarious wants to drain it away from others.

The Treasures theme includes some artifact synergies, while Grave Robbers takes advantage of creatures in your graveyard. Ghastly, on the other hand, includes cards that get stronger by sacrificing others.

Red is the color of passion and speed. The Too Many themes wants you to make creatures quickly, while Burning deals damage directly to your opponent as fast as possible. Goblins and Zealots are also focused around attacking quickly, but that's not all red can do. It's also the color of Dragons and of intricate spell combinations exemplified by the Copied theme.

Stoked features spells to boost your creatures and creatures that want to be boosted, while Warriors goes a little bigger to outmaneuver your opponent's defenses. Lastly, the Bloody theme is built around Blood tokens and the madness mechanic.

Green is, unsurprisingly, the color of nature and growth. This includes themes built around Beasts, Dinosaurs, and Fungus, but also Dinner, with cards focused on gaining life. Encounters is all about +1/+1 counters, while Modified also includes a few Auras and Equipment.

Elves are a staple of green magic, and they rely on creatures to make as much mana as possible. Explorers is also a big mana theme, but focuses on playing extra lands rather than mana dorks. Lastly, the Landfall theme is all about having lands enter play again and again, burying your opponents under an avalanche.

Finally, the five-color theme is called Chaos, and it lets you cast spells right from your deck with cascade. As long as you can get all five colors of mana in play, these powerful creatures can quickly take over any game of Magic.

Whether you're a veteran Magic player or just entering the Multiverse, Magic Foundations has something for you. It also marks a new approach to supporting Standard, somewhat offsetting the cost of rotation.

If you started playing Magic with Commander, this is the perfect time to give Standard a try, and if you've been trying to get your friends or family interested in the game, this is the perfect product to do it!